


soots like "suits"

by I_loved_it



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Phil Coulson, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anxiety, Arguing, Avengers Tower, Awkward Tension, Bruce Banner Feels, Frustration, Government Agencies, Mental Health Issues, Omega Natasha Romanov, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, SHIELD, Team Dynamics, Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:41:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23734789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_loved_it/pseuds/I_loved_it
Summary: “No.”Steve sighs, “Tony.”“No! Cap, you can’t be serious! I’ve never needed one of those…even with all my shit, and we’re fine!”“We’re not.”“We fight because we’re a bunch of assholes. It doesn’t have anything to do with our dynamic.”“You’re probably right,” Steve has a small smirk on his face before he can control it. “You are an asshole.”---------------Just a self-prompt at this point. If you read, please leave a comment to let me know what you think!
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Tony Stark, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

“You’re being assigned a team Soother. Considering the stressful and violent nature of your work, the United States government has seen fit to provide an agent of…” Coulson goes on to recite the official descriptions: meant to placate the sometimes volatile differences and instincts of so many alphas on one team, provide a balancing presence, etc.

To Steve, it just seems like the 21st century’s way of assigning a pack omega. It’s still servitude.

Steve looks around at the team to see different levels of discomfort on each of their faces.

“So here’s her profile,” Coulson says, handing the tablet to Steve. Every time they do that he’s uncomfortable. Not only is tech really not his thing, but a part of him still feels like they’re in Tony’s house and that this is stepping on his authority as an alpha. But Tony “doesn’t like being handed things,” so there’s not really a way around it if Steve tried. 

Speaking of Tony, he’s pissed, standing next to Steve exuding frustration. He steps up to see the basic stats on whatever SHIELD deigned to tell the team about this agent: time served, gender, first and last name--probably fake, no dynamic listed, and age: in years, not providing a date of birth. Nothing of value, but Tony can have JARVIS try to run some searches with the picture.

Not that he intends on putting in that minuscule amount of effort. Because he’s not interested.

Once he's determined there's nothing of use in the room, he wanders out without saying a word.


	2. Chapter 2

“No.”

Steve sighs, “Tony.”

“No! Cap, you can’t be serious! I’ve never needed one of those…even with all my shit, and we’re fine!”

“We’re not.”

“We fight because we’re a bunch of assholes. It doesn’t have anything to do with our dynamic.”

“You’re probably right,” Steve has a small smirk on his face before he can control it. “You are an asshole.”

Tony opens his mouth like he’s in shock and wants to dwell in the echo of Captain America calling him names which are not ‘jerk’ or ‘swigger’ (which, thanks on that one Cap, alcoholism is great). 

After a second, he’s back to being angry about the situation. “We don’t need this.”

Steve just shrugs.

“You know I’m right! The Avengers do not need a fucking Soother. We should just refuse it and move on.”

“We can’t.”

“The hell we can’t! We just tell Agent whatever her name is to fuck off and -”

Steve interrupts him, “You know we can’t, or you wouldn’t be this angry." 

Normally, he’s not a big supporter of things being dictated to the Avengers about their ‘safety.’ After the second time SHIELD had made very explicit commands on mission organization and the consequences of going against the standard, Steve had stood in front of an injured and exhausted team knowing that SHIELD was wrong about the mission and probably other missions. Steve had decided that he didn’t care much for the organization’s policies when it came to the Avengers. 

But this wasn’t SHIELD. This was the actual United States government. Refusing would be an offense while also making the relationship between the Avengers and the government appear unstable. It wasn’t an option.

Tony makes a sound like he's groaning behind his teeth.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony thinks it says a lot about how much the team does not need a Soot that they can gather together and meet in one of the neutral lounges to talk about it. 

Cap had retreated from the room once Tony nodded and agreed to meet with the team in twenty minutes. Supposedly, Steve had gone through the information on the Avengers’ new house guest and asked Phil some more questions. 

When Steve shows up in the lounge, his expression is impossible to read. 

He’s trailing just behind Bruce who had been trying to go over the decade of science and medical journal articles pertaining to pack dynamics and pack/team/group Soothers that he’d missed since the Hulk. Bruce looks discouraged but not exactly upset.

If Tony didn’t know it was ridiculous, he would say Steve looks surprised. 

Everyone's seated. Not comfortably like they were just an hour ago upstairs, but they’re sitting around looking at each other with varying degrees of mutual frustration.

He looks up at Steve and raises an eyebrow.

Steve nods and makes a gesture with the tablet he’s holding. It kind of looks like he’s going to toss it to the side, but his arm lifts a bit too high for that to be the case. Jarvis immediately displays the current screen onto the large television on the wall beside him.

Tony had figured out how to get this to work for Steve early on when he realized the guy was so uncomfortable that he was afraid to go through the tablet’s settings to find a ‘cast’ or ‘mirror’ button lest the information be lost. So now Steve just gestures with the tablet, and JARVIS takes care of the rest.

The profile Tony had seen before was now on the wall. There are a couple of little notes Tony didn’t notice before. Because they weren’t there. This profile has been updated in the last five minutes according to the tally at the bottom of the page.

Natasha obviously notices the date, “Steve, what?...” She’s usually very loquacious, but for some reason, she doesn’t talk to Rogers the same way. He seems to respond better to open questions like this instead of anything accusatory.

“I contacted Fury,” he says. “... And then the president.”

“What!” Clint leans forward like he’s either going to spring up ready for a fight or slide out of his chair to laugh on the floor. “You called the president? What, have you had him on speed dial this whole time and just not told us? We could have invited him to the mission last month with the-”

“Clint, shut up.” Natasha doesn’t have the patience for his shit on a regular basis. Right now, he may get stabbed - maybe somewhere not that important, but the danger is there.

“So her name actually is Elle, at least to everyone that speaks with her. The few people I tried to get in touch with about her gave me similar reactions: yeah, she’s great - a trained Soother,” Steve looks like he might be sick at that, “a good agent, but she’s on a mission right now so you can’t contact her.”

“The Soother is being assigned a live-in long-term, possibly year-long position while they're not even here?” The question could have seemed concerned from anyone else. From Tony, it just sounded angry, like if she had been at a SHIELD base somewhere he could have prevented this.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that against some sort of protocol?” Bruce asks, looking between Natasha and Clint.

Natasha answers, “SHIELD routinely assigns missions while agents are in the field. If they had to wait for agents to come back to base, the whole schedule would fall apart.” Natasha is staring at the far wall, contemplating. “If the agent has been a licensed Soother for long… she might have no idea she’s been considered for this. SHIELD wouldn’t make informing her a high priority for any mission.”

“Well that’s not creepy,” Tony mutters.

Steve is still tense, standing next to the screen. 

“Yeah, but this is a totally different thing!” Bruce’s upset doesn’t put anyone in the room at ease.

Tony is the one to change the subject. “What did you get from the president?”

“She's… pending intermittent reviews … She's to stay as a formal Soother to the team for 16 months.”

“Well, that’s just bullshit.” Clint has a knack for summing things up.

Steve’s mouth just tightens, then he keeps going through what he’s found out, “She’s supposed to be here in two weeks. We - well, Tony, you have that long to set up quarters for her and prepare access codes for a team Soother.”

Tony smirks, “Great, how does a room with an excellent view and a slanted balcony sound? I can remove the handrails and everything.” 

There are low sounds of agreement, but no one feels up to continuing the joke. Everyone is still thinking about what a Soother means for the team.

The team is made up of alphas sans Natasha.  
Phil is nice, polite but he’s still an alpha even if he doesn’t live in the tower with the team.  
And Natasha might be an omega, but they’re pretty sure her dynamic was chemically forced in the Red Room. 

Soothers are often betas, easy scents to balance out the “pack.” Most are just betas that decide to work in some sort of social work/therapy setting. Betas just have that natural ability to even things out. That doesn’t mean that the betas themselves are always logical and calm but that they simply don’t exude pheromones when they are upset or angry or on edge. 

This Soother is a SHIELD agent, though. That’s not exactly a common resumè.


End file.
